King's Bounty: Armored Princess Interview

Article Index

Eschalon: Book II

Publisher:1C Company
Developer:Katauri Interactive
Release Date:2009-11-20
Genre:
  • Role-Playing,Strategy
Platforms: Theme: Perspective:
  • Third-Person
Buy this Game: Amazon ebay
It's no secret that we liked King's Bounty: The Legend. A lot. If you didn't come away from our "RPG Hybrid of the Year" blurb with a good understanding of why we liked the game so much, then our review of the game should spell it out a little better. Simply put, King's Bounty is a triumph on many levels.

As such, it really isn't too surprising that Katauri Interactive is busy working on an expansion pack entitled King's Bounty: Armored Princess. Despite the fact that the company is located on the opposite side of the Earth and a translator is required for any type of correspondence with them, I managed to grab the attention of project lead Dmitry Gusarov and fire off some questions to him. Up until now, we knew relatively little about Armored Princess. Thanks to Dmitry's candid answers, though, that's about to change:


GB: Tell us more about the Lizard race you're adding and what new units we might expect from them? What talents and other abilities will these units have access to that weren't already available in the original game?

Dmitry: There will be many new units in King's Bounty: Armored Princess, such as:

Gorgul: Lizard armed with a spear. It possesses the ability to regenerate, a talent for running, and a special Bloody Madness ability allowing it to damage every unit nearby, including allies. If a Gorgul kills the enemy unit, it receives another turn immediately.

Gorguana: Female Lizard armed with a staff. Possesses special magic abilities, buffs, and debuffs.

Hyterant: Flying creature that can hatch eggs on the battlefield.

Brontor: Slow, but well-armored Lizard, which can dig itself into the ground and strike enemies with spikes.

Tirex: Predator and a very strong attack unit that looks like a tyrannosaur. The leader of Lizards.

Chosha: Worm, attacks from the underground. It creates units and can turn them into adults using its Initiation skill.

Young and adult Gobots. Worms that can creep underground and bite enemies.



GB: You've mentioned that KB's role-playing system will be improved upon in Armored Princess. Can you elaborate on this a bit? What steps have you taken to make the expansion feel even more like an RPG?

Dmitry: You can upgrade your hero to level 50 and beyond now. The hero's skill tree will be changed and updated. We'll introduce a reward system giving additional bonuses to the character. You can make contracts as in the original King's Bounty game, which allows you to gain double rewards for winning a battle and killing enemies. There will be the opportunity to fly on Pegasus.


GB: Will our interactions with spouses and other NPCs in the expansion be similar to what we saw in the original game? Or will you be expanding the dialogue system to allow further choices and potentially even skill-based interactions?

Dmitry: There will be armor-bearers, each of which has a specific temper. Relationships with each of them will vary. We are not going to expand the dialogue system though because we consider that to be sufficient.